The Mighty First, Episode 2

by Mark Bordner

  At first, no one replied, but soon there were excited announcements of movement being spotted.

  “It looks like someone is trying to sneak up on us,” Minerva stated. “Do you see the blue dot that your visors are projecting on each of those figures out there? That is your suit telling you that they are fellow Marines. On the battlefield, this serves to prevent friendly-fire incidents. Tonight, however, it just means that they are easy targets. Mortar teams, calculate your range-finders and lob a few rounds at them.”

  The kids assigned to those squads enthusiastically prepared their tubes and fixed the range. When the rounds launched out, the hollow, metallic shump was loud in the quiet of the early evening. The bang of the rounds exploding was significantly louder, accompanied by bright flashes.

  “Open fire!” Minerva shouted.

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  Her platoon lit the field in a strobe-like lightning storm of paint-tracers. Bright pink laser-like flashes that snapped the air in the same fashion as plasma rounds. The noise was every bit as intense as the real thing. Whoever it was out there dropped low and began returning fire, those same pink tracers illuminating the forest and splattering paint through the branches. Mortars began raining back in at her line, and it was soon a full-fledged battle.

  Xxxxx

  Amell had led her platoon west through the woods, away from Minerva‘s, then cut single-file north, out into the grassy field. She sent Jo with her own fire team further north, to extend the left flank. They utilized the uneven terrain to their advantage, darting from one gulley to another, keeping covered behind the clumps of stone and groups of young saplings. She took them out perhaps two hundred yards before hunkering down in six-man squads, positioned in a wide south-north line. This gave them a clear vantage of the portion of field approaching the trees where First Platoon had dug themselves in.

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  They watched while the attacking team slowly emerged from the wash to the north and began sneaking south. Amell studied their tactic closely, and eventually came to the conclusion that it was A-Company. She spotted one trooper in particular that was hanging back, seeming to observe the movement of the group, and figured that must be Mark. The reasons for her suspicions were that A-Company had been saddled with most of the youngest replacements, and were shorter than many of the other troopers.

  As the group neared the outer reaches of the perimeter, the characteristic sound of mortars whistling through the air filled the night, followed by the barrage erupting just behind the advancing line. Small arms fire began lashing out from the trees.

  “Open up!” Amell ordered.

  Her own platoon began pouring fire across the field, pinning A-Company down from their right flank. She tried to imagine what must going through those young, inexperienced minds out there, and couldn’t help but grin.

  Jo was leading her squad in a belly-crawl, creeping forward with the intention of coming around behind the opposing platoon,

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  and cutting off any route of retreat. Minerva observed this over her visor tactical and noted this with approval, thinking to herself that there was a future sergeant in the making.

  Xxxxx

  Alpha Company hit the ground at the first explosion, surprised and frightened beyond words by the bright, loud concussion. The effect of the tracers snapping above their heads was mortifying. Mark observed his charges, noting how they reacted. The kids had frozen. This would be a fatal mistake on the battlefield.

  “Timothy!” The master sergeant bellowed. “Order your people to return fire!”

  The kid did so, and rifle rounds began popping off, tentatively at first, but increasing as the kids recovered from their initial shock.

  “You have different teams at your disposal,” Mark told the private over the mic. “Put your 60-watt gunners to work. Utilize your own mortars and saturate those trees!”

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  It took some goading, but eventually the company began reacting as they should, just far too slowly.

  That was when rifle rounds began chattering in from their right, adding to the confusion. Timothy looked at Mark, his face hidden behind the visor, but the uncertainty in his voice conveyed what must have been an expression of sheer terror.

  “What do we do?” The kid asked desperately.

  “Use your head!” Mark chastised. “What do you think you should do?”

  The kid glanced to the west, then back again, “Have Second Platoon shift right and cover that flank?”

  The master sergeant nodded, “Do it quick!”

  Timothy issued the order and the others belly crawled around to do so. The noise and the flashes were disorienting, interfering with their ability to think clearly. Reactions were hesitant. They began taking paint-casualties as a result. Mark kept silent and waited to see what they would do.

  Xxxxx

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  In the tree line, Minerva was doing the same, much more pleased with how her kids were performing. They were taking the return fire in stride, continuing to keep the barrage steady over the field, forcing the enemy to bog down. Whomever it was out there, they had no hope of advancing any further. The only option open to them would be to pull back or move to the east, and she planned to cut off that second route.

  “ Squads one and two, move right a hundred yards and cut out into the field, “ she instructed. “ Once you’re in position, begin firing on their open flank. Go!”

  Xxxxx

  Amell could see that A-Company was floundering. More and more of their troopers were becoming doused in bright pink, marking them as casualties, and the return fire was dwindling as a result. Jo already had her team positioned behind A-Company and was waiting for their chance to join the fray.

  “Begin advancing by squads,” she ordered.

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  The situation was rapidly spinning out of control. Second Platoon was nearly entirely out of commission, and now it appeared that the force to the west was beginning to close the distance.

  “Your company is getting slaughtered!” Mark told the private. “You’ve found yourself facing an overwhelming force, what should you do about it?”

  Timothy was beyond the ability to reason, looking back and forth, unsure of what to do next.

  “Freezing up out here is not an option!” The master sergeant insisted. “It will get your men killed. Think!”

  “Fall back!” Timothy shouted. “Everyone fall back to the gulley!”

  The proper method would have been to do so by squads, covering one another in a leap-frog fashion, but the kids were panicked. Many thoughtlessly stood upright to flee and were promptly spattered with paint. To add to it, fire was now coming in from the east, surrounding them from three points.

  Then fire began pouring in from behind, which caught

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  Mark by surprise, as he had failed to notice any movement at all from that quarter. Paint rounds slapped sharply against his armor, stinging as the impacts were distributed along its plates.

  The master sergeant waited until there were only a few troopers left unpainted, and it was clearly evident that they had been effectively decimated. He keyed the mutual frequency and announced the tap-out phrase.

  “Camp Madison!”

  Instantly, the barrage of fire ceased. The sudden silence was total.

  “On your feet and gather around,” Mark ordered, standing and holding up his arm, waving for his company to move in.

  The kids stood up, dejected and shaking from the adrenaline. They shuffled toward him with their heads hanging, holding their weapons loosely as if they weighed a thousand pounds. Every one of them glowed a bright pink in the night-vision feature of their visors--- some were nearly covered head-to-toe with the stuff, having been spattered by the simulated mo
rtars.

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  Mark’s voice was not harsh, but carried a serious tone, “Take a look at yourselves,” he said. “This entire company was wiped out! Eighty of you dead in less than twenty minutes. What went wrong here?”

  No one spoke. They were disappointed and ashamed.

  “I’m not chewing you out,” the master sergeant intoned. “I want you to evaluate yourselves, that’s what this exercise is all about. It’s your one chance to fully understand that combat is not fun and games. People are going to die out there. If you want to survive, you need to know what to do and what not to do. Now, what went wrong out here tonight?”

  Timothy spoke up first, “I guess we should have been surer of what we were really up against.”

  “Exactly,” Mark replied. “You ordered your entire company to advance against a held position without having any idea what the enemy troop strength was. Sometimes, that kind of scenario is unavoidable, but when you can do it, you must always scout your forward areas before committing to an attack.”

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  “What would have been better?” Someone asked. “I mean, how should we have tackled this as it was?”

  Mark pointed north, “Ideally, we should have established a forward CP--- that’s a field command post, back in that gulley, where we had the advantage of cover. You would have spread out by squads along both high ridges for about a hundred yards, setting up outposts to create an effective kill-zone around the camp. Then, send out a five-man patrol to recon the area in a grid pattern. It’s easier for a smaller team to remain unseen.”

  The kids nodded, taking that in. Another rose their hand for a question.

  “Sarge, what should we have done in the spot we found ourselves in, being surrounded like that?”

  “You basically handled that the only way you could have, “the master sergeant admitted. “ It was just done too slowly. You responded properly initially, dropping and returning fire to the south, but it should have been executed without delay and with much more intensity. As we were flanked to the west, that platoon should have swung to engage that side without waiting for

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  orders to do so.”

  “When do you know to cut and run?” Timothy asked.

  Mark motioned east, where that fire team was walking toward them, rifles slung over their shoulders, “When we became surrounded and began taking near-total casualties, the thing to have done would be to retreat by squads, covering one another. Ideally, we try to never leave a wounded Marine behind, but the cold, hard fact of it is, is that sometimes the battle dictates what you can do.”

  “What if we get taken prisoner?” A girl asked.

  Mark paused for dramatic effect.

  “The Storians don’t take prisoners.”

  He wanted that to sink in. This wasn’t a kid’s game, bang you’re dead, and then you get up again. Death was for real, and it would be stalking them every day.

  “Chalk this up to a learning experience, “Minerva told them gravely.” Remember why we’re out there. We depend on one another, and the rest of the world is depending on all of us.”

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  Mark looked about, “Which one of you managed to sneak your fire team in behind us?”

  Jo stepped forward, her rifle strapped over one shoulder, “Right here, Master Sergeant.”

  “Damned impressive,” he stated.

  Minerva smiled with pride, reassured that she had picked her leaders well.

  As the kids shuffled about, segregating back into their respective platoons, she took her husband aside, pulling her helmet off, and letting the cool night air refresh her skin.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” She asked.

  Mark gave her a quizzical look, “How do you mean?”

  Minerva patted his breastplate affectionately, “We’ve seen action in all of two campaigns, and we’re suddenly the teachers. Who’d have figured?”

  Her husband smiled, and shrugged, “We’re officially the first combat veterans in almost two hundred years. I guess that counts for something.”

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  Her expression became serious, “Do you think we can do this, Mark? Can we survive this thing?”

  Mark’s smile fell away, as did his words. He reached out, and took her hand in his own, kissing her armored glove. The truth was that he doubted it.

  Xxxxx

  Out in the swamp, roughly five miles distant, the silence of the night echoed with the far-off sounds of the battle. The members of Bravo Company peered out at the darkness, seeing only the greenish tint of night-vision induced scenery. Beyond the elevated ridge where they had dug in among the cedars, the bog was still. Cattails formed a dense forest near the edges, where bullfrogs belched at one another and feasted on the clouds of mosquitoes that hummed near the surface.

  Sergeant Major Ford reclined against the side of his foxhole after linking up with Manny‘s group of kids, wishing that he could smoke, but the act of raising one’s visor only invited swarms of biting creatures that were drawn by their breath. He had watched a rather long snake slither across one of his legs

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  earlier, and was thankful for the armor. Snakes tended not to bother him, though, it was spiders that creeped him out. Those things had too many legs on that bulbous body. Just the thought of them made him shiver.

  He was fairly satisfied with the kids in C-Company. They had established their perimeter and set up outposts on their own, requiring little input from him at all. The acting leaders had taken it upon themselves to set up watch schedules to rotate rest periods, and even sent out a patrol. It seemed that despite the ridiculously shortened basic training period, now only four weeks long, the Corps was still managing to instill some field expedience in its recruits. Ford liked to think that newly promoted Sergeant Bri, his former subordinate-instructor, was the reason for this. He had invested a lot of time combing Bri to take his place.

  Dylan Briggs had been making rounds to each of the foxholes, checking on his people, and returned to where Ford was camped. The boy eased down and sat across from him, opening his visor long enough to drink from his canteen.

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  “Sounds like there’s quite a party going on somewhere,” the private mentioned.

  The clap of mortars followed one another in quick succession, accompanied by non-stop rifle fire. It was quite intense. The sounds brought memories to Ford of his recent tour in Youngstown. That fight had been a horrible one. He had seen things that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  “That’s nothing compared to what a tank battle will do to your ears,” Ford said, his deep voice sounding even more so in the helmet mic. “Or artillery.”

  The seventeen-year-old turned to peek over the edge of the hole, scanning the swamp. He was watching for signs of his patrol returning, it had been over two hours since they trekked out there.

  “Do you think we’ll have any activity tonight?” The boy asked.

  There was no reply, and Dylan realized that Ford was snoring, the man had dozed off. The private keyed his tactical display and studied its features, familiarizing himself with the

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  different formats. He was too worked-up to sleep, and steeled himself for a long night.

  Xxxxx

  Joplin, Missouri

  There was still a bit of daylight left in the sky, here, where the time difference was a few hours behind the war games going on in North Carolina. A non-descript sedan cruised unmolested on the highway skirting the city, which was settling in after the day’s toils. This was the Occupied Zone, and civilians worked where and when they were told. Road traffic was that of laborers going and coming from their daily assignments, monitored by armored vehicles posted at regular i
ntervals along streets and highways.

  This particular car, driven by one American by the name of Jeff, was privvied to passing through the roadblocks without as much as a glance. Each time, the senior soldier at the post would radio ahead to the next one that the man had gone through and was on his way.

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  Jeff did not look too well. He was sweaty and tired-looking, his eyes glazed over in perpetual euphoria induced by the nano-chip embedded in his spine. His gaunt features were that of someone on a drug-binge. He had not eaten since leaving Indianapolis, had only stopped to refuel the car’s generator and relieve himself. The man was a tool, programmed for a single purpose, intent in carrying it out.

  While he drove, one hand constantly caressed the center console, where the 45-watt sidearm was tucked safely away, provided for him by the Storian officer he had met in the operating room.

  A sickly grin spread across his pasty face, and he continued west across Missouri.

  Xxxxx

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  July 29th

  Parris Island, North Carolina

  Dylan Briggs rose slowly from the depths of sleep, in stages that eventually brought him aware of the urgent need to urinate. He stirred, muscles stiff inside the armor, and tried to stretch, yawning. His brain was gummy from broken slumber, and when he opened his eyes, he became aware that he was alone in the foxhole. Ford had awakened first and left, probably making rounds. Morning sunlight was beaming down through gaps in the canopy above, where a profusion of birds chirped and flitted about. A chipmunk chattered from somewhere.

  Dylan roused himself and began to stand, abruptly freezing in place as his view rose above the edge of the foxhole. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A feeling of dread filled the bottom of his stomach.